The poem describes four people stuck at traffic lights – two are garbage collectors and two are an elegant couple in a Mercedes. The poem is about the contrast between these people and the divisions between rich and poor that exist in American society. The description of the couple as “Beautiful People” is perhaps ironic as the term was ...

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was named the first poet laureate of San Francisco by Mayor Willie Brown in August 1998. His inaugural speech,was delivered to an enthusiastic, full house at the San Francisco Main Library. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is the author of fourteen books of poems, as well as fiction, translations, plays, and essays. He is also a committed painter, a renowned ...

See more? Young Frankenstein – ">here and here.

Today we talked about the film Bonnie and Clyde – if you want to read about it try these links:

Roger Ebert:

“Bonnie and Clyde,” made in 1967, was called “the first modern American film” by critic Patrick Goldstein, in an essay on its 30th anniversary. Certainly it felt like that at the time. The movie opened like ...

We have talked a little about Inception, here is an interesting post on the film from Cinema Blend.

Inception crashed into theatres last night at midnight and if you haven’t seen it, we hope you will soon. When you do, it’s sure to be the only thing you’ll want to talk about for at least the next ...

Feeling much happier now … good to get that writing in.

Shannon tried Q7 on animal testing and I have added her introduction below – any thoughts?

Imagine living locked inside a steel cage, alone. Nowhere to go and nothing to do. You can’t choose when and what you eat. Think about spending your entire life being injected, stabbed ...

Diddly.

That will change today. Choose one of the following topics and hand in to me today by the end of period three.

Resistance is futile.

Imagine that you are writing to the editor of your local newspaper. Your letter, which will be published in the newspaper, should ...

In Romeo and Juliet there are some very effective insults. Choose one and research its meanings. Did the filmmakers use it correctly or change it for their own purposes?

On one level the masked ball is a way to get Romeo to meet Juliet. The ball would also have been something that Elizabethan audiences would have enjoyed for the costumes and a glimpse of upper class life. In both films that we watched it provides a musical interlude and a break from the violence. We also see that ...

We have now seen two highly regarded film versions of Romeo and Juliet. The last one we saw was the Zeffirelli film from 1968 and it has been popular with viewers for many years. In that film the use of 16 and 17 year old actors to play the title roles has been well received. Another factor in Zeffirelli ...

Night, by Elie Wiesel, is a powerful indictment of how a society’s indifference to the ...

Elie Wiesel’s autobiography, Night, tells of the Jewish children, men and women who were herded into Nazi extermination camps. It is the story of his survival but also of the tragedy of an innocent, religious youth who, when confronted by a systematic human evil, comes to reject and hate his God for allowing it ...

Like the quarrelling lovers in Michael Gondry’s film, emotion battles it out with reason, writes Avril Moore.

“Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

ALTHOUGH literary references are scattered throughout Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind it is important to view ...

In the opening of George Orwell’s powerful novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, everyman Winston Smith describes his physical surroundings. The clock strikes a punctilious 13 as our protagonist drags himself up seven flights of stairs due to the poorly maintained elevator and electrical shortages.

The weather reflects his life; there is a “vile wind” and it ...

An interesting article from Slate magazine that discusses the neuroscience of the film.

One of the many rewarding parts of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the fact that the film contains almost no dialogue that sounds like actual neuroscience. The film, as you may already know, tells the story of two star-crossed lovers whose stars have gotten ...

For those of you looking at the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind here is a link to Roger Ebert’s review.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!The world forgetting, by the world forgot.Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d. – Alexander Pope, “Eloisa to Abelard”

It’s one thing to wash ...

This is for Sean. May be of interest to others.

One of the most recognisable pop cultural icons of the 90’s, Quentin Tarantino has established himself as a true film auteur with a respected philosophy that places the finished project high above the paycheck. Quoted, mocked and copied to death by almost every media outlet (including “The Simpsons”) over ...

Have a read of this article that takes Sarah Palin’s struggle with English and goes on to discuss portmanteau words and malapropisms.

Sarah Palin’s ongoing struggle with the English language entered a new phase this week, when she called on her Twitter followers to “refudiate” the proposal to build a mosque on the site of the World Trade Center. ...

Another discussion about changes to our drinking laws and out booze culture. This article is from The Sunday Star Times and it may be helpful for your research and formal writing preparation.

The government’s liquor reforms, to be officially launched tomorrow, will not put an end to the arguments about New Zealand’s heavy-drinking culture. Anthony Hubbard reports.

THE GOVERNMENT ...

Go here to read an interesting discussion on Children of Men and I Am Legend.

Children takes place in London in 2027, eighteen years after a pandemic of infertility renders humankind unable to produce offspring. In the face of impending extinction, Theo Faron (Clive Owen), a white, middle-aged bureaucrat, helps Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), a black, inexplicably pregnant refugee, ...

As we have discussed District 9, the film, has links to District Six. This is an interesting article that gives you lots of information about District Six.

Science fiction has always provided the best metaphors for isolation and anomie, and District 9—the two-week-old box-office hit from South African director Neill Blomkamp about a population of alien “workers” from another ...

There is a really interesting article in today’s NZ Herald in which Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, issues a stark warning over the amount of personal data people leave on the internet and he suggests that many of them will be forced one day to change their names in order to escape their cyber past. This article ...

According to Wikipedia the name Clarissa is derived from the English and French name Clarice. Clarice is derived from the Latin word Clarus, which means “bright, clear, or famous.” Clarissa also has a Greek origin, from the root, meaning brilliant.

So why did McEwan choose it for one of his characters? Today we talked about the use of ...

Ian McEwan discussing Enduring Love:

“I wanted a man at the centre of this who was a clear thinker, who appears to be right but then perhaps is wrong, but is in fact right … I wanted, in other words, to write a book somewhat in praise of rationality which I thinks gets a very poor showing in western ...

• Alliance
• Armistice
• Entente
• Lusitania
• Propaganda
• Shellshock
• Somme

Create your answers in “Word” and then copy and paste your answers as a comment to this postWhen you have completed the above task, you may ...

Let Ian McEwan explain his novel and read an interview with Ian McEwan. The following is an abbreviated version of an interview that ran on the NPR affiliate KUSP on February 16th, 1998 and 12:00 pm. Eric Schoeck is the Capitola Book Café Events Coordinator. Read the whole thing here.

The randomness of fate seems to be one of ...

We have talked great deal about the opening of the novel. We have discussed what McEwan wanted to suggest about Joe as a narrator in terms of his very organised nature. Everyone noted the visual aspects of the beginning and the drama of the balloon incident. The opening is so intense that we can see how Jed’s emotional attachment ...

This year we have talked a fair bit about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. We could also look at the novel in conjunction with Enduring Love as there is also a conflict between science and religion.Once again we have the idea of the rationalist scientific mind set up in opposition to the values of the heart.

Decoding a film’s DNA can be enlightening.

MUCH of Hollywood screenwriting theory and film analysis is based around the “three-act structure”, which, according to Syd Field (author of the influential Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting), “is a beginning, ...

The novel 1984 resonates long after the year has passed.

IT HAS been exactly 30 years since I studied George Orwell’s political satire 1984 for my year 12 certificate. In 1976, I was mesmerised but not wholly convinced by the idea that government control, when ...

This is a post for Connie.

Life of Pi is like a hall of mirrors. It is possible to ”see” or ”read” the text in so many ways that a single reading is impossible. Yann Martel does this on purpose; he plays with his readers and our desire for a single, conclusive truth.

The narration is multi-faceted. On one ...

The “Little Albert” experiment was a famous psychology experiment conducted by behaviorist John B. Watson and graduate student Rosalie Raynor. Previously, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov had conducted experiments demonstrating the conditioning process in dogs. Watson was interested in taking Pavlov’s research further to show that emotional reactions could be classically conditioned in people.

The participant in the experiment was ...

Last week we also discussed satire. Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organisations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change.

Famous examples from literature include George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm. Look at The Onion and The Daily Show ...

Last week we also discussed satire. Satire is a literary technique of writing or art which exposes the follies of its subject (for example, individuals, organisations, or states) to ridicule, often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change.

Famous examples from literature include George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm. Look at The Onion and The Daily Show ...

On Friday we discussed lampoon. The usual context of a lampoon is a parody of a person or people in a current event. The intention is to emphasise the absurdities of a situation, or to provide a means of criticising the situation, using the logic of the humour. You may use similar terms such as send up, parody, spoof ...